


Just Like Home

by SyntheticFlyingMachine



Category: Apex Legends (Video Games)
Genre: Developing Friendships, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-18
Updated: 2020-10-18
Packaged: 2021-03-08 18:46:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,619
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27071461
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SyntheticFlyingMachine/pseuds/SyntheticFlyingMachine
Summary: After experiencing a workplace accident that caused him to lose most of his hearing and undergoing a failed experimental procedure, Cassidy Kotov wanders into a bar to drink away his pain. Instead he makes friends with a charming local bartender.
Kudos: 4





	Just Like Home

**Author's Note:**

> This is sort of an origin story for my Apex Legends OC. I hope you like it.

The light and irregular pitter-patter of a dispersing downpour filled the nighttime air, mingling with the sounds of rustling of leaves, chirping insects, and branches crunching under the weight of someone's walk. A dirty, worn-out combat boot broke the forest line and a rain-soaked figure stepped onto the small field ahead. The person breathed a sigh of relief and stretched out towards the dark blue sky. The city lights below him called out, beckoning him to come closer.  
And so he did. His heavy shoes sunk into the well watered grass underneath them as he made his way to the streets ahead. Everything was so unfamiliar to him, as it had been for the last three years of his life, but this time was different. He was alone for the first time since he came to the Outlands. And for the first time since he was 22, Cassidy Vespertilio truly felt free.

-Three years earlier-

The moment Cassidy stepped off the IMC ship, he knew he had walked into a death trap. The land before him was vast and untamed and so very far from what he called home in the Core Worlds. It was frightening and nerve racking but most of all, it was exciting. It was a chance of a lifetime. On his 19th birthday, he joined the IMC forces and the very next year he touched down on an unmapped planet in the Frontier. He was a part of a new IMC operation called the Outlands Expansion Project.  
There had been other similar government projects since the Frontier War, but usually they were designed for scouting out and collecting resources that the Core Worlds were in need of. Some of the earliest projects had come after the IMC withdrew from the war, many being secret expeditions to find isolated, habitable planets of the Frontier that the worst of the war had happened to pass over. That was how the Outlands grew to how it is today: a handful of planets on the edge of the Frontier.  
For the next year and a half, Cassidy and everyone else working on the Expansion Project studied, examined, and explored the planet they were assigned to. Everything had been going smoothly, for the most part, until an accident occurred during what was supposed to be a simple scale of a mountain. While Cassidy was climbing to the top, his mountaineering equipment malfunctioned and soon he found himself hurtling towards the ground hundreds of meters down.  
He was in a coma for nearly six months. His twenty-second birthday had passed just a few days before he awoke. His hearing was almost non-existent. The first nurse to attend to him informed him he was at a hospital that worked closely with IMC soldiers and personnel, using a pen and tablet to help him understand better. When his accident occurred, he was transported to where he was now, to the closest planet from the one he was working on: Solace.  
After just a few weeks awake in the hospital, the doctors assigned to Cassidy offered him an experimental device that would improve his hearing to be even greater than what it was before the accident. Something different than a standard hearing aid. It would be surgically implanted into him and linked with the area of the brain that processes sound- the auditory cortex. The process would not be reversible. He accepted.  
The surgery went extremely well. The device was working. Cassidy's hearing was back and he finally felt like he was himself again.  
Until the first month passed. He began hearing things that he was told were not there. He heard voices and footsteps and scratches in the walls. The hospital staff accused him of losing his mind and placed him on anti-psychotics. He spent many more months in the hospital than intended, being supervised by nurses throughout the days and nights. Sometimes, he thought everyone was right to say he was crazy. That the sounds he heard weren't really there. But other times, he knew the truth. The doctors didn't anticipate that the device would increase his hearing to such an extreme degree.  
He was in the hospital for a year before the doctors permitted him to leave.

-Present day-

Cassidy stood in the middle of the deserted street and focused. Downtown he could hear cars driving down a much busier road and a few doors over he could hear idle chitchat and the gentle clinking of silverware on dinner plates. He smirked. It was just like the Core Worlds. Just like home.  
Across the street a door opened swiftly, breaking him from his trance. A couple walked up the sidewalk leaning on each other in a drunken haze. Cassidy felt his feet move before he even realized where he was heading. He desperately needed something to drink.  
As he opened the door to the bar, he became painfully aware of how he must've looked to the other patrons. His short hair was plastered to his face and his old clothes clung to his body as his soaked-through shoes left a trail of muddy water behind him. His teeth were chattering from the cold, which he hadn't noticed until now, and his voice came out quiet and wavering when he asked the man behind the counter for a drink.  
"Here. Have the whole bottle. I can afford it," the bartender laughed cockily as he said those last words before turning away and grumbling to himself about not having enough money to give handouts. He swung back around and leaned against the counter, nudging the bottle slightly closer, "No, really. I own the place."  
Cassidy took the bottle into his hands and inspected it. "Bam•booze•led?"  
"Own that, too! So... what's your name, 'boy-o'?" The pet name was clearly a jab, or maybe a poor imitation, at Cassidy's Irish accent. The eccentric man downed a filled-to-the-brim shot glass, as if showing off, and then winced. "I really shouldn't drink on the job- I don't know why I did that." The statement was more to himself than to anyone else.  
Cassidy hesitantly said his name aloud and glanced around the room, paranoid. He unscrewed the bottle in front of him and took a generous swig.  
"Well, Cass, it's nice to meet you," the man's voice trailed off as he wandered over to a table that needed cleaned. His voice grew louder once he finished his task, no longer preoccupied. "I'm sure you already know who I am- uh- right? It's okay if you don't, I know not everyone knows. Maybe it's a little cuh- con- c- selfish to think most people know me. I try not to sound that way. My therapist said it's a defense mechanism. What does she know?" He stopped abruptly once he noticed that he was rambling. "Uh- anyways, I'm Elliot Witt! A.k.a. Mirage from the Apex games!"  
Cassidy watched as Elliot proudly stretched his arms out to the side, as if he was saying 'ta-da!' before getting back to work on the dirty tables. The other patrons had left during their conversation and it seemed like Elliot was getting ready to close up shop for the evening.  
"Sorry, I don't watch the games. Should I be leaving?" Cassidy took another quick sip of the whiskey in his hand as he asked the question.  
Elliot stood up straighter, and a more serious tone coated his voice, "Do you even have anywhere to go to? It's supposed to storm again."  
A sigh left Cassidy's lips as he admitted to the older man that he had no where to go. He wondered why a complete stranger would even care about his well being.  
"Good. I've got a place, right here." Elliot smiled and walked over to Cassidy, then tousled his hair. "Just one condition, though. You have got to help me clean up this water," Elliot pointed at the mess over Cassidy's shoulder and grimaced.  
The puddles that Cassidy tracked inside had nearly slipped from his mind until then. Apologizing, he accepted the proposal and retrieved a mop and towels with some instruction from Elliot.  
Once the floor was cleaned, Elliot locked the doors of the bar and showed Cassidy to the small apartment up the stairs. "Let's get you some new clothes and a place to sleep," Elliot yawned out the words as he walked into his room. Minutes later, he returned with a pair of grey sweatpants and a yellow t-shirt, along with some socks and underwear. "Don't worry, kid. They're clean." He joked around with Cassidy as he directed him to the bathroom to change. "I'll make up the couch for you while you're in there."  
Once he was dressed, Cassidy walked towards the sofa and looked around. Elliot had gone to bed already. Cassidy wondered just how late it had gotten. He reached out for the alcohol that he had carried upstairs with him and began to think about his bed back home. He wondered just how much he had missed during his time away. How much everyone he knew had changed.  
He shuddered as a gentle breeze blew in from an open window and chilled his neck. After taking another drink to warm himself up, he decided that it was time to sleep.  
As his head hit the pillow, Cassidy realized how calm things seemed. The noises that haunted him were softer, at least for the moment, and he felt at peace for the first time in months. A soft snore broke through his thoughts, coming from the door where his host slept, and he listened to the outside as the first raindrops of the coming storm fell. He smiled again. Just like home.


End file.
